Jordan O'BrienPanasonic has joined Sony and LG in becoming yet another manufacturer to launch an OLED TV at CES 2017, unlike those other two manufacturers, Panasonic has left Dolby Vision off its feature list for the new EZ1002.
There was little fanfare surrounding the launch of Panasonic’s EZ1002, the company even failed to mention the new TV in its press conference. Despite that, Panasonic claims that it is the world’s first HDR-capable, Ultra HD OLED TV, which also supports professional grade image processing.
What that means for the actual capabilities of the TV is that users will enjoy around double the peak brightness of conventional OLED and also be able to experience almost the full DCI colour space, or so Panasonic claims. LG has made similar leaps with its sets at CES 2017, with its OLED sets promising 99% of the DCI-P3 colour space.
It’s not just about brighter pictures and more colours than ever before, Panasonic has also included an Absolute Black Filter on the EZ1002. The Japanese electronics giant claims that this should soak up ambient light and reflections to further ensure that where part of an image should look black, it actually looks black. Additionally, Panasonic says that the magenta tone that affects some other OLED screens in bright room conditions has been completely eliminated.
All of this technology is made possible by Panasonic’s Studio Colour HCX2 processor, which the company claims is the most powerful video processor it has ever used in a consumer unit. This processor supposedly delivers unparalleled ‘Delta Zero’ accuracy. Which Panasonic says means that “thanks to 3D look-up tables the EZ1002 can deliver some of the most accurate colours in the TV world.”
Unfortunately Panasonic has left off Dolby Vision capabilities from its OLED model, despite both Sony and LG offering it. Despite that, Panasonic’s set still supports standard HDR 10 and has even achieved full, independent certification from THX.
Panasonic has confirmed that a 65in EZ1002 will be available in Europe from June 2017, although failed to release a price.